


the lost myth of true love

by light_loves_the_dark



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, As In Everything's Out of Order, Dark Five, Dark-ish Vanya, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Episode: s02e07 Öga for Öga, F/M, Five is an Assassin, Manipulative Relationship, Murder, On Purpose, Possessive Behavior, Pseudo-Incest, Season 2, Seriously This Is So Messed Up, This is a Problematic Fic that Knows It's Problematic, Time Skips, Unreliable Narrator, Vanya Hargreeves is Powerful, Violence, it's okay i hate myself too, no seriously, possessive Five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:21:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25817233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_loves_the_dark/pseuds/light_loves_the_dark
Summary: Five imagines his Vanya kissing this new woman, the woman she is leaving him to return to. A terrible, raw feeling clouds his mind, but only for an instant. There is no room for emotion in their narrow timeline. Five is an interdimensional assassin. There’s an easy way to fix this.He’s already bleached blood from his pristine, white collar once today. He can do it again.-aka the one where five would do anything to keep vanya safe. and his.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 57
Kudos: 344





	the lost myth of true love

**Author's Note:**

> guys. WTF. 
> 
> basically the story of this is i've wanted to write something really problematic and Not Good for a few years now. queue that scene of five and vanya having the standoff in 2x07. and here we are.
> 
> seriously, seriously, don't read if you don't like. i'm not condoning ANYTHING that happens in this fic. all of it is terrible. everything five does is bad, every way he tries to justify it is bad, and vanya's not too great of a person either. 
> 
> (title from hozier)
> 
> (now with ART by @good_charcoal - i'm crying guys thank you erika!)

_-_

_one minute after_

It just makes sense. 

At least, it makes sense to Five, standing over the body of the woman that Vanya cared enough about to consider staying behind. Without him. 

That caveat is important. The apocalypse looms, his siblings are scattered, but he’d dance on the universe’s grave if it gave him his little sister. 

The blonde woman - Cecilia Cooper, thirty-two, simple housewife - is insignificant. Well, insignificant to him, not to the universe, where the course of the future is one dead butterfly from the end of the world. She’s pretty, in a way, he thinks, bending to take a closer look. Glassy blue eyes and a thick drawl of an accent. Five finds her blonde haired, odd son as well, disappearing in a flash of blue to deposit the squirming boy with the neighbors. This is the thirteenth dead body he’s seen today. 

He doesn’t think it will be the last. 

-

_three minutes before_

“Do not test me, Vanya,” he growls, stalking back to his sister when she refuses to follow him. When she refuses to be _good_. He hunches his shoulders when he comes to a stop inches away from her, hovering, drawing on his superior height. He knows this youthful face will win him no intimidation points, but his presence, even as a thirteen-year old, has never been small. 

Vanya doesn’t step to meet him like any of their siblings would. She just smirks. Her body is as unassuming as his - short, plain, swallowed in baggy clothes. But she’s powerful, and even without her memories, she knows it. “That’s funny,” she replies, soft but with an edge, a mocking edge. It makes his shoulders tighten as his mouth presses into a thin line. How dare she speak back to him? Vanya is snarky and clever and can match his wits any day, but she’s never been belligerent. It discomfits him, but he’s not going to let it show. “I was about to say the same thing to you.”

She glows then, and he matches her; the air between them vibrates with tension. He imagines kissing her. It’s not the first time. 

He imagines her kissing this new woman, the woman she is leaving him to return to. A terrible, raw feeling clouds his mind, but only for an instant. There is no room for emotion in their narrow timeline. Five is an interdimensional assassin. There’s an easy way to fix this. 

He’s already bleached blood from his pristine, white collar once today. He can do it again. 

After a few seconds, he allows his power to fade - only for Vanya, only _ever_ for Vanya - and she answers his retreat with her own. “Fine,” she says, even and controlled. 

His shoulders are still up around his ears as he tilts his head, searching her face for answers. He misses the days before he left where she was an open book for him to read, her every thought and emotion clear for him to peruse. She has changed since then, as people always do, and he is eager to know this Vanya just as well. To turn her inside out and examine everything that has been done to her in his absence. He needs to know her again. He purses his lips at the thought of his young body, shelving the biblical sense for now. He can start with her mind. 

“Fine, what?” He demands, inching ever so slightly closer. 

She only gets caught up in the tension for a moment, swaying closer to him in a breathless, beautiful moment before she takes a step backward. She holds his gaze though, and something in his chest burns. “I’ll be there,” she says, “but I need to say goodbye first.” 

Five suppresses his scoff, knowing it will only drive her away. Goodbye? As if she owes these farmers any more of her precious time! _Their_ precious time. “Oh, Vanya,” he says softly, placating, “we don’t have the time.”

She doesn’t buy it. “Well it’s either that or I’m not coming.” 

The softness falls away from his expression. He had given her so many chances to leave this alone. Of course, he would never blame his Number Seven for her tender, beautiful heart, but that doesn’t mean that he’ll accept that heart doing her thinking for her. “Fine,” he spits out. “I’ll follow you in my car. You have a five minute head start.”

Vanya nods, sprinting to her car.

Five waits until she is driving away before he spins on his heel, disappearing in a blue pop. 

-

_six minutes after_

The lights are flickering in the house as he pulls up. The curtains in the broken windows are cut to ribbons. He had expected this, planned for it, even. He would be an idiot to underestimate Vanya, but he doesn’t fear her. Her power works in bursts of emotion. As long as he doesn’t make it worse, the worst of it is over. 

In a flash of blue, he is at her side. The sight of the body and the bloody knife is familiar, so he puts it out of his mind, but his grieving sister is a new variable. He approaches slowly, bending down and folding her into his arms, making sure she knows it’s him. 

“It was him, it was him, he killed her,” she’s murmuring, She allows his embrace, and he turns her so her face is pressed against his chest. Her tears soak through his vest, and it feels like a benediction. 

“Who did?” He asks, low and soothing, plunging his fingers into her silky, loose hair. 

“Her hu-husband. He must’ve found out, he must’ve…” She shakes harder, sobs rising up and choking her, and he rubs her back. Affection is an anathema to him, but he’d do anything - learn anything - for her. 

He bends down, letting his mouth brush her ear. He shivers at the sensation, but she’s too deep in her grief to notice. “We have to go, Vanya.”

She runs her hands down his shoulders to his forearms, gripping the fabric with purpose as she pulls back enough to look up at him. He likes that, her looking up at him. He can't wait until he is taller, until she has to crane her neck awkwardly to look in his eyes. “Five,” she says, several layers to her tone that he doesn’t have the time to digest. Grief. Fear. Familiarity. “ _I remember_.” 

He stares down at her, pushing back the smile he knows isn’t appropriate and settling for something smaller, affectionate, brushing his thumbs under her eyes to clear the moisture there. Her eyes, the curve of her mouth, how comfortable she is at the places their bodies connect: all evidence that he is familiar. He exhales in a shuddering breath as he drinks in the feeling that she _knows_ him. “Everything?” He clarifies.

She nods. “The shock - seeing...” she trails off, still clutching his coat sleeves. She tries to turn back to the body, but his hands cup her cheeks like iron. She doesn’t need to see it again; she’s too lovely, too pure, and he doesn’t want to break her heart more than necessary. She is trembling. “This is my fault, Five,” she confesses. “The apocalypse, everyone being dropped in the 60s, and now Sissy. Oh god, what’s going to happen to Harlan?”

Five shakes his head. “He was outside - I took him to the neighbors - told them that his parents were… gone. They said they’d call Sissy’s family in California. But Vanya, we have to go.” 

Her eyes flash white. “No.”

“Vanya,” he growls. He’ll drag her to that alley unconscious if he has to. 

Vanya presses her head against his shoulder. “No, Five, I’m coming with you. But we have twenty minutes, and you can jump with me, can’t you?”

Five bristles. Of course he can jump with her. “I’d rather not waste any time.” 

Wind picks up in the house as she gazes up at him with a steadily growing rage. “This won’t be a waste of time.”

-

_nine minutes after_

_  
_ Days ago, Five thinks that seeing Vanya glowing in her white, slim-fitting suit, dark hair gleaming and floating, stroking those powerful notes from her violin, exuding glorious power… he thinks that is the most magnificent sight he will ever see.

He is wrong. 

They land at the end of the road, past a small gathering of police cars, on a small dirt road where a single, blue car idles with a man Five has never seen behind the wheel. Vanya shatters the windshield of the car with a careless wave in her hand. 

Five, of course, had offered to do all this for her. He’d happily kill for her - and killing with her watching on would be an added bonus. Feeling her eyes on him while he lets out his feral soul would be the greatest honor he could imagine. 

But this, this is more than magnificent. This is divine. He wants to fall to his knees and worship her here, in the dirt, on this side road in 1963. He wants her, this unearthly being, his very own goddess. 

He watches her tear the man’s throat out and his trousers tighten. 

He has killed for her. It’s a fact; it’s a joy. He never thought she would kill for his pleasure. It is a false justice he is watching, but it is also his plan weaving together perfectly. He can’t regret a single moment of it. 

He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, approaching her with soft steps as she breathes heavily, staring down at the body. He wordlessly takes her hands, one by one, wiping them clean. 

“There’s something wrong with me,” she says quietly.

He shakes his head. “This was vengeance,” he corrects. “Justice for… Sissy.”

“No, I know that.” Vanya examines her clean hands, holding them out to him. “But I miss the blood,” she admits. “It felt right.”

He smiles at her, bringing his own oddly bloodless finger under her chin, raising her gaze to his. “I know what you mean,” he says lowly, and she smiles at him, wobbly and uncertain, but a smile all the same. He offers her his arm. “Now, shall we, my dear?”

Vanya nods, ignoring his arm and wrapping herself around him.

-

_twenty-five_ _minutes after_

They miss the window. Five is angry but not as much as he would usually be; Vanya’s small hand has been clutched in his since the side street, and it quells the fury. At least one of his ducks is where she’s supposed to be.

-

_now_

Her voice is unique to him, a low, country drawl. The thickness of the vowels make her begging so pretty. “Please, I don’t know who you are,” she pleads, on her knees as she watches him twist and twirl the knife between his fingers. Knives are Diego’s thing - sharp and precise. He doesn't like them very much, but needs must. The knife was on the kitchen counter, easy access for a crime of passion. Not that he would know what that's like. “Please don’t hurt my son!” She begs.

Five shrugs, circling her carefully. “Fine,” he agrees. He can be amiable. Agreeable. No one could say he didn’t take a last request or two in his time. 

He slits her throat, watching her clutch at her neck as blood seeps through her fingers. His delicate sidestep had saved him from the spray, but had not saved the wall, which is now painted crimson. Better than most modern art, he thinks, and it had taken a mere stroke to do. To him, the only true art is Vanya's violin anyway. He has nothing against Jackson Pollock, but Vanya's music transcends any splatter of paint. Or blood, for that matter. 

All sense of agreeability fades as he squats down in front of her. “Vanya’s mine,” he tells her frightened eyes, her bloody, twitching hands. He tosses the knife at his feet, brushing his hands on his shorts. “You shouldn't have touched her,” he adds, injecting a bit of regret in his voice. His thirteenth kill today. He needs to take a few days off - he’s not part of the Commission anymore. He’s different. Newer. Better. 

He knows his sister, he thinks, blinking back to his car. She loves him. She would eventually forgive him this. 

Not that he’s stupid enough to spoil their blossoming relationship with admitting a measly murder or two. So what if she liked this woman? She should know that he’s the one for her, the one who has patiently awaited their reunion, fighting to live and killing to survive. He’s waited too long for her. He’s not going let some stupid country bitch ruin things for them. 

In the distance, a bright blue light flashes, lighting up the sky. 

He smirks and starts the car. 

  
  
  


beautiful, lovely, perfect art by @good_charcoal - erika, thank you so much!!! <3 

**Author's Note:**

> *hides*


End file.
